Sunday, November 27, 2016

Owlcrate is a monthly box subscription that is based around
the box's theme of the month. The themes usually focus on a Young Adult series
and have items that go with that series. For example, in July 2016 Owlcrate had a theme of Good vs
Evil box; if you got an evil box you were given a Draco Malfoy POP figure by
Funko or if you got the Good box you were given a Luna Lovegood POP figure by
Funko. A typical Owlcrate box includes a box based on the month's theme along
with 3-5 book/nerdy/fun items that tie in with the book in the Owlcrate and
theme.

The cost of an Owlcrate is $29.99 a month plus shipping and
the box usually ships around the 20th of each month. Another great part of the
Owlcrate is that you can buy it as a gift for someone! It's a perfect birthday,
Christmas or anniversary gift for any book lover!

The theme of November’s Owlcrate: Wonderland. The Wonderland box features products by

I had a feeling it would Marissa Meyer's new book Heartless, based on the Queen of Hearts.

Overall thoughts: I was really excited for the November Owlcrate because I love the theme and I thought the book was great, but again I was bit frustrated because I don't think they include items that everyone uses. I really liked the bookmark and the revision book of Alice in Wonderland but I would of preferred another item. The tea was a really great add on that fit in with the theme but unfortunately I do not drink tea. I did like the box overall and I'm really excited to read Heartless but I wish Owlcrate would put more variety into it.

Friday, November 25, 2016

I don't know if it's because of the election year but there have been A LOT of romance releases in the last few months focusing on the President of the United States. Which honestly has been very comforting to me given the state of the election and all the drama that has followed it this year. It's nice to escape and read something and forget all the craziness the 2016 election has been. Most of what I've read is has centered around someone running for President and falling in love that way or some sort of drama happens while a character is/becoming President and romance blossoms. American Queen was a complete surprise for me (I will get to that later because holy cow there were SO MANY things I was not expecting!) and although I keep happening to stumble on random books, they keep happening to be very happy stumblings so I'm thankful for that! The book I'm focusing on for this review post is American Queen by Sierra Simone. Buckle up kiddos because this book went from 'Wow! This looks like a beautiful, interesting book!" to "Oh my god I am melting. I am a puddle of mush on the floor." And I say that very, very seriously. Simone knows how to write, let me tell ya!

The Cover: I adore this cover! I enjoy where most romance books have couples on the cover and they are very beautiful, intriguing and hot; but at the same time I'm loving the direction where a lot of romance books I've seen this year have been a cover of one person. Whether that's the heroine of the book or the leading man, I like the change. American Queen's cover is gorgeous and it's always nice to see a picture of the heroine on the cover. This is who the story focuses on right? So why not put the leading lady on the a book cover? Bam! Seriously, American Queen is probably one if not my favorite book cover this year.

Basics:American Queen was released on October 24 2016 and I am happy to say is book one in a planned trilogy. It is available on Amazon and Ibooks. American Queen is 392 pages long.

Description: It starts with a stolen kiss under an English sky, and it
ends with a walk down the aisle.

It starts with the President sending his best friend to woo
me on his behalf, and it ends with my heart split in two.

It starts with buried secrets and dangerous desires...and
ends with the three of us bound together with a hateful love sharper than any
barbed wire.

My name is Greer Galloway, and I serve at the pleasure of
the President of the United States.

This is the story of an American Queen.

Overall thoughts: WOW is literally the word that comes to mind when I think of American Queen. I was not expecting a lot of things such as how beautifully Sierra Simone writes, the way she easily weaves words together just takes my breathe away. The characters and story of American Queen had me setting down my kindle because I was so mesmerized by them and I honestly didn't want the book to end. I was very, very happy to find out that there would be two more books but I had such a hard time finishing because I did not want this book to end. Ever.

But enough of me gushing! Let's move on to some of the the surprises I was discussing earlier. Now when you look at the book's description, it obviously talks about Greer being in love with the President of the United States and how there's some sort of love triangle going on in the book. What I did NOT expect was for Greer, Ash, the President of the United States and Embry, the Vice President of the United States loving one another. All three of them in love with each other. I was shocked and in a good way, because usually in romance stories are between two straight people. It's 2016 and I was so happy to see a different style romance being put into words and it's something different. It's been done before sure and I have read similar stories like American Queen with a couple involving another person but nothing beats the writing of this book.

I am a military wife so I really appreciated reading about about both Ash and Embry's background serving in the military and how they basically fell for one another fighting and protecting each other. I also really liked how Simone broke up the book into sections because Greer, Ash and Embry's story doesn't just happen overnight, it spans years. Again, something I really like reading about because most romance books see couples falling for each other just out of the blue with no history between them. Which is completely fine but it means so much more when there's background between characters.

I have NO IDEA where the story is going to go next but I'm so excited to see where and how takes the story of Greer, Ash and Embry next!

I just want to make a small note before I finish this section of this post: Fictional or not, everyone falls for each other differently and attractions vary. I like reading romance books because every character is different and each couple or couples have different relationships. Again, it's 2016 and it's so refreshing to read about something different because each character and person in this world deserve to find happiness regardless of their gender or sexual orientation, again both fictional and real. Love is love.

Favorite characters: OH MY GOSH. I adore Embry! I really love Ash too but ah! Greer is also fascinating to me because she has so many different sides to her and I think she is very relatable too. I also really liked her Grandfather although he had minimal parts in American Queen.

Couple Chemistry Rating: 5/5 Shells

I put THREE gifs in honor of Greer, Ash and Embry.

Bad character awards: Abilene. Just...read American Queen and you'll find out why...but seriously, she is the reason why women hate and have issues supporting one another.

Favorite Quotes: I had SO MANY favorite quotes from this book! So I apologize if it's a lot more than I usually post but it was seriously that good.

"I'm not just walking down the aisle to the man I've been in love with since I was sixteen, I'm walking down the aisle to marry the President of the United States." -Greer

"You barely know me." "You're a war hero and the President of the United States. If I can't trust you, I can't trust anybody." -Ash and Greer

"You're with me. You're not with him. You're giving this to me." -Embry (I mean..holy hell. All the heart eyes.)

"I love you. Surely you already know that. You must know." -Ash

"This was supposed to by my fairy tale, with me as the princess and Ash as the prince, but there's a third person ere, a person we both want and who wants both of us." -Greer

Final thoughts: I loved American Queen and I will be waiting with bated breath for the sequel! I highly, HIGHLY suggest checking out American Queen if you are wanting to read something sexy and swoon worthy, but also fun and truly showcases what true love is and how far people are willing to go for the people they love. I hope you enjoyed this review and I hope you check out American Queen and Sierra Simone!

Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Hello all! I hope everyone is enjoying some much needed time off during this busy time of year! And most of all I hope you find time to read! I found an awesome article the other day that was discussing facts about reading and found something very uplifting about being such a book nerd! Apparently reading can therapeutic; according to Cristel Russell, a behavioral researcher,
reading can help with any stress or turmoil occurring in your life. If you’re
going through a break-up, or simply just need to relax, try a new book! So while everyone is running around either because of school, work, traveling, getting ready for Thanksgiving or Christmas, or studying...make time to find something new to read!

Which is actually the whole point of this blog post! From now on I am going to share a monthly post about a certain book series! I don't know about how you, but waiting for books to come out is heart wrenching! Especially if a book ends on a cliffhanger AND takes another year to be released...like come on authors, are you really trying to kill us? So! For those who are like me and hate to wait...I figure I would find a series that is already published and share it with you guys!

So without further ado, let me introduce you to November's featured series: Ice Planet Barbarians by Ruby Dixon. I am kindle user and this series was suggested to me when I signed up Kindle Unlimited (a great system where you pay $10 a month where you can rent out ten books at a time for as long as you want, as long as you return one of the ten books you borrow!) I didn't know what to think but I thought I wanted to give it a try. And I was happily surprised! Ruby Dixon painted such a creative world with twists and turns that I found myself wanting more! It's been a year since I first stumbled upon the Ice Planet Barbarians series and it's a series that I still read a lot and continue to read when Dixon releases more books in the series.

The Cover: There is a total of NINE books in the Ice Planet Barbarians series and Ruby Dixon has some of the best covers I have ever seen. I love them them so much and I think they are so creative. I gave you a sample of my favorite covers here. Barbarian's Taming is my favorite out of the entire series, it has such an old romance cover vibe which I think is lovely. A+ for covers!

Basics: The Ice Planet Barbarian's series has a total of 10 books as a series, with more on the way! And it also has 6 smaller slice of life stories that add to the entire plot of the Ice Planet Barbarian series. The series book usually are easier reads with 100+ pages and can be finished within a day or so. The slice of life books are a lot smaller (but just as fun!) and can be read also within a day or a few hours if you are a faster reader. Ruby Dixon also publishes this series herself (another reason I support her honestly, any author that does everything themselves is just amazing.) If you have kindle unlimited, you can read this series for FREE. That's over all 10+ books for F R E E. But if you want to own the actual books, they range from $12.99 paperback or if you don't have kindle unlimited, the regular price on kindle is $3.99!

Description: Imagine waking up on a spaceship locked up in some sort of shipping container with a group of girls. This is the situation for Georgie. Trying to escape their alien captors, Georgie and the rest of girls that were stolen from their homes on Earth try to keep themselves alive while both facing their cruel Alien captors and crashing on an unknown planet. A planet that has unending snow and dangerous looking creatures. Without supplies and without trustworthy to help anyone to help them, the whole situation seems pretty bleak, until a strange blue handsome looking alien comes out of nowhere.

From Amazon:

**You'd think being abducted by aliens would be the worst
thing that could happen to me. And you'd be wrong. Because now, the aliens are
having ship trouble, and they've left their cargo of human women - including me
- on an ice planet.

And the only native inhabitant I've met? He's big, horned,
blue, and really, really has a thing for me...**

Overall thoughts: I really love these books. They take me somewhere new and interesting and who doesn't love a good fantasy, sci fiction kind of romance? The first few books describes how all the girls start their new lives on the new planet and surviving with the people that decided to take them in. I love reading all the different relationships and the dynamics between the two different species, which can be very funny at times because the English doesn't translate well into the sa-khui language. I love, love, love learning about each of the couples and how they learn to get to know one another, their differences and how each and every couple fall in love and find a way to work with one another.

Each book focuses on a certain couple and what I love about Ruby Dixon, each girl is different. They have different looks, features, personalities, weaknesses, strengths, sizes, health issues. Unfortunately there is a lack of diversity in books nowadays and I can promise you that Ruby Dixon does a fabulous job of show casing different characters, couples and situations. And I greatly adore and appreciate her for doing that.

Favorite characters: There are so many fabulous characters to chose from that it's hard for me to narrow it down to a few, but I will try! My favorite couples have to been Vektal and Georgie, (the first couple to be featured, Ice Planet Barbarians.) Liz and Raahosh (Barbarian Alien) and Harlow and Rukh (Barbarian Mine.) All couples have a very different relationships and I enjoyed watching them fall for one another despite their differences. Again each book focuses on a different couple, both an Alien and a human. Two other characters that also stood out to me who appeared later in the series were Lila and Maddie. Lila is deaf and can't hear and Maddie is a bigger girl with a fierce attitude to match. I also enjoyed their stories and although they came later, their appearances still made sense to the plot.

Couple Chemistry Rating: 5/5 shells

Again with each book, different couples have different types of chemistry and intimacy with Ruby Dixon writes in such a wonderful, dirty, emotional, heart filled way that you can but want to read each and every book because there's a differences with each couple. Also...the differences between the human's body and the aliens bodies discussed in the book is just..swoon worthy to be honest.

Final thoughts: For anyone who wants something different, with twists and turns but insanely beautiful, dirty, heart string pulling and fun writing? I would seriously push someone to read Ice Planet Barbarians. Not only is it a series with a possibility of being completely free to you, but there's always something more added. A new couple with a disability. A couple that is overcoming something. Or just a couple falling in love, either way this series is just something more. Ruby Dixon has a wonderful gift and I hope you give Ice Planet Barbarians a chance because it's a ride that you will get on and will refuse to get off once it starts!